Black Friday Record Store Day 2024.

It’s been 24 hours, and the subject of this year’s Black Friday Record Store Day has not been brought up. I wonder if that is because not many here participated, or because the subject is not gear-centric enough? For those who did participate, I thought listing our 2024 RSD acquisitions might be of interest to other participants.

There is a growing feeling in the Vinyl Community that the prices of RSD titles has gotten out of hand. I myself pass on some titles because of their prices. One reason I do that is because my main LP shop---Millennium Music in Portland, Oregon---is a major player in RSD, and receives at least a full carton of every RSD title, many titles multiple cartons. The shop therefore often has copies left after RSD, and ends up sale-pricing them shortly thereafter. A $60 title will in some cases be available for $40, a $50 title $30.

I got up at 4:00 a.m., and was in line by 4:30. The shop opens at 8:00 on RSD, so I had a 3-1/2 hour wait (I brought the book I’m reading---The Double Life Of Bob Dylan: A Restless, Hungry Feeling 1941-1966 by Clinton Heylin. Lots of others in line kept themselves entertained on their i-phones). It was fairly brisk out (by about 6:30 my toes were numb), but a couple of my most desired titles were pressed in pretty low numbers. I don’t usually go to RSD that early (6:00 in more typical), and have missed out on only one title in the years I’ve been attending. That title was easily found at a shop in Northern Washington the next day, and with no inflation of the price.

I perused the RSD titles online, and made a list of the ones I was pretty sure I wanted. All but one were "RSD First" titles, which means the involved record label intends to release the title as a "normal" release some time in the future. If a given title is very important to me, I assume it’s release may in fact never materialize, and buy it on RSD. Here’s what I bought, all titles previously unavailable:

- The Blasters: Live At The Venue, London: The Complete Concert (1500 copies worldwide). $44.99 for 2-LP’s. The full original Blasters line-up, with brothers Dave and Phil Alvin, Gene Taylor on piano, and Lee Allen and Steve Berlin on saxes---the latter now a Portland resident.

- Buffalo Springfield/The Byrds: Live At The Monterey International Pop Festival (3000 copies). $39.99 for 2-LP’s.

- The Flamin’ Groovies: Let It Rock: Live From The San Francisco Civic Center 1980 (1200 copies). $24.99 for 1-LP. The group I was playing in in 1981 got an offer to open for The Groovies at a small club in SF that Summer, so we drove up from L.A. to do it. Meeting Cyril Jordan was a joy, and we got on like the soul brothers we are. Some fault The Groovies for being too derivative, but not me. They are possessed by as deep a love of Rock ’n’ Roll as anyone I can think of. Their Dave Edmunds-produced Shake Some Action is a-maz-ing, one of my all-time Top 10 albums.

There were two other titles I was interested in, but decided to pass on:

- Jesse Ed Davis: Tomorrow May Not Be Your Day---The Unissued Atco Recordings 1970-1971 (1000 Copies). This one of the RSD First titles, so I decided to wait for it’s eventual normal release. It’s RSD price of $59.99 for 2-LP’s was just a little too high for me. If Music Millennium ends up marking it down I’ll pick it up then.

- David Grisman: Dawg ’90 Deluxe (1300 copies). I like Grisman, but don’t love him, and didn’t feel like paying $49.99 for this 2-LP set.

The RSD path through the store passed by racks containing non-RSD titles, priced to sell. So I picked up the new release by Billy Strings: Highway Prayers, marked down from $49.99 to $29.99.

And you?